Category: …And Little E Makes 3

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...And Little E Makes 3 Television & Movies

Complete and blatant randomness

In about 8 hours, it’ll be boys’ night here at Casa Green! My wife’s going to a postal workers’ convention, or she’s going postal at a workers’ convention, or she’s working on going conventionally postal or something. At any rate, she won’t be here all weekend, but Evan and I will, and, of course, Obi and Olivia will be hanging out too. As much as I sometimes get frustrated being “stuck” with the baby when there’s someone else inthe house who could be taking him off my hands for a bit, I don’t find myself feeling that way when it’s just the two of us and I know it’ll continue to be just the two of us. There’s a different psychological expectation there, I suppose – you know you’re running a marathon with no chance for relief, so there’s no light mocking you whilst standing perfectly still at the other end of the tunnel.

I just spent the better part of the last two hours listening to this SyFy Radio podcast, which is actually a bit of a hard news piece about the ignominious and not-just-a-little-bit-suspicious collapse of a recent convention in Dallas (the show was cancelled mid-morning on the day that it started!). It’s fascinating listening, though one’s advised to also visit Syfyportal.com and read the accompanying text articles for some additional context. But it’s a lot of drama, and it’s a legitimate news topics because a lot of people lost a lot of money – and may or may not have realized that the wizard behind the curtain of this show was the same fella who solicited donations to save Star Trek: Enterprise back in 2005. Between this and Flack’s podcast (which has just done its fifth installment), I’m reminded – cruelly – of how much I’d like to take on the podcasting beast and try to tame it, and then I hear my son roll over noisily in his crib and remember why I don’t even think about podcasting most days. At this rate I don’t think I could even guest on anyone else’s podcast. I mean, unless you people really want me to start podcasting baby feeding sessions…I mean, what’m I gonna use my old Radio Voice for now? Public service announcements about not misplacing your binky?

Evan’s entering that Extremely Clingy Stage of separation anxiety that little ones go through anywhere from the 8-month mark on; supposedly this passes at around the 1-year mark. Can’t wait for that. It’s not that I mind keeping him company all the time, but there are some times – i.e. showering, cleaning litterboxes, engaging in the taking of a dump, loading the dishwasher – that it’s just impractical, if not impossible, to haul him around and get this other stuff done that needs to happen. (Especially the dumps. Those are way important.) Basically, he’s at the stage where, if you set him down and then step out of sight to do something, he starts shrieking because he’s been left alone. Sometimes you just have to let him cry it out, because this stuff has to get done, but it makes me feel like the Worst Dad Ever. I don’t ever see this happen with Evan’s mom, so I guess it’s official: he looks at me and sees, more or less, his primary support system. The feeder of baby food, changer of diapers, mixer of bottles, and the bringer of darkness (i.e. the guy who keeps putting him down for a nap every 3-4 hours). If someone had told me, this time two years ago, that any child on this planet would ever look at me that way, I would have happily told them that they needed their head examined pronto.

One thing I’m thinking about doing, though, is putting a curtain over the “long” end of his crib – i.e. the side that faces the bed across the room where I sleep. In the mornings, if he wakes up early, he’ll sometimes be content to just sit up and play with the stuffed animals in his crib. But if he sees me move, even if I’m turning over in my sleep, GAME OVER, time to wake up! Get up, dad! I saw you move! I know you’re awake! FEED ME! 😆 He’s suddenly been getting up at about a quarter to five, ready to eat, which isn’t my favorite time of day to wake up. Where he gets this early bird trait genetically, I don’t know – it ain’t on my side of the family. 😛

One last baby note: he held and crank his own cup of water on Friday after lunch. Not a sippy cup with some kinda quasi-nipple thing on top, but a real live kid-sized cup. I’m sticking to my earlier theory: he’s got a big head because he’s scary smart. Case closed.… Read more

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...And Little E Makes 3 Cooking With Code Gadgetology

Thanks for the memories

The memory card snafu has been solved! Pantech pointed me in the direction of an incredibly useful piece of software called Easy Photo Recovery which recovered – get this – all but two of the photos that had vanished from the offending memory stick. (The two casualties were from this week’s ToyBox piece, and since that’s already posted the originals aren’t needed anymore.) This program is just amazing, and I had no idea anything like it existed – and I’ll probably be calling on its services in the future, since this isn’t the first oddball disappearance of memory stick photos I’ve ever experienced, and because I take a lot of pictures. (I don’t know anyone with kids who doesn’t, actually.) … Read more

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...And Little E Makes 3 Cooking With Code Critters

The case of the users who weren’t

Baby needs a new parachute!I’ve recently had a flood of new users sign up here at the old blawg (meaning my WordPress blog, for those on Livejournal or Myspace who are wondering what in the world I’m going on about), all of them with very strange and phonetically improbable usernames and Gmail addresses. After googling the usernames to see if there was any history with any of them, I found that there is indeed history…usually stretching back all of 39 minutes or so as the Google crow flies. I’m going to make it a habit to delete these as they pop up (actually, at first I typed “poop up”, and on further reflection this may be entirely more accurate). For anyone legit whose new ID I might have just nixed: sorry. There’s really nothing exclusive to signed-on users anyway, and they still have to use the dreaded captcha – it just makes life slightly easier for frequent-flyer commenters. You’re welcome to try to sign on again, be you boy or bot.

The PDF DVD is selling frighteningly well, and preparations are already underway to start the second print run (!!). I fired off a second round of publicity to sites such as Retroblast, Armchair Arcade, etc. last night before going to bed (well, last night…it may actually qualify as “this morning” if you’re going by what time it was), and reviews have started appearing on DP, so I’ve been hit with a new wave of orders. I’m hoping against hope to get new copies in the works this weekend, because I’m about outta the OEGE limited edition. (Fun fact: I have some clear address labels that I was thinking of using to very cheaply turn the OEGE limited edition into the OVGE limited edition, because I actually wasn’t sure that the first 50 copies would be out the door before August. Looks like I needn’t have worried! 😆 ) Now I guess the real test is to see if PDF:DVD gets Slashdotted. (This isn’t me asking one of my buddies to do this, by the way – as with the reviews, I’m waiting to see if anyone does it of their own accord.) Here in a little bit, Evan and I need to saddle up and go get more bubble mailers, because I have more orders than I have mailers – and I just picked up a bunch of the bloody things on Sunday night!

Also, a little advance publicity here: I’ll be sharing a table at OVGE this August with Brett Weiss, author of the incredibly detailed and massive tome “Classic Home Video Games, 1972-1984: A Complete Reference Guide”, so if you’re looking for two exhaustive works on video game history, hit him up for the book and hit me up for the DVD in one visit. (If you can’t make it to OVGE, I’ve also added Brett’s book to theLogBook.com Store – check it out!) I’ll also have some other DVDs for sale and – odd as it may seem at a video game show – some loose and carded Doctor Who action figures up for grabs too. (Maybe it’s just because all of my friends with similar tastes show up for this shindig, but I never have any problem moving Doctor Who swag at OVGE.) I’m really looking forward to this year’s show.

In other news, I’m getting really good at inducing hysterical giggles in the boy. Two things really seem to set him off: my rubbing my bald head on his belly (don’t ask me why, but he laughs until he’s almost ready to wet himself), and me making a puffer fish face and blowing on him. Perhaps not surprisingly, I never get tired of doing these things because I never get tired of hearing that little guy laugh. It’s enough to make me think I’m almost getting this daddy thing down.

Othello is doing better and is easing back toward eating dry cat food, with no apparent complications. Slowly but surely he’s regaining his body mass; he’s certainly regained his old attitude. 😆 … Read more

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...And Little E Makes 3 Should We Talk About The Weather? Toiling In The Pixel Mines

Mother’s Day musings

More nasty storms rolled through tonight. No damage on our end, but it wouldn’t have been the first damage of the year if there had been; we finally got the write-up from our insurance company on the work to be done on the house, as well as the check to do it with. It’s not what I’d describe as a small check, and not what I’d describe as small work: new roof, new windows all around, new back door, refinish the deck…I’ll admit that I look forward to having screen windows (the paperwork actually specifies screen windows), as well as a new back door, but I was a little surprised by the new roof thing. That’ll be fun. 🙄

In other news, another round of PDF DVDs goes out the door on Monday, due in no small part to me finally openly promoting it on Digital Press and AtariAge. Both communities have a bit of a history of suddenly getting their backs up when someone starts trying to sell them stuff from within, but ya know, I think both communities also know me well enough to know that I’m not a fly-by-night spammer. (Though considering how little I’ve been on AtariAge for the past few years, they might think I am. 😆 What can I say? I just don’t quite have the hardcore Atari tunnel vision that some of the folks there do, and I feel a little out of place.) I’ll admit that over the past couple of weeks since the OKC show, it’s been kind of fun to see where I got with just word-of-mouth and a banner about the DVD in my message board signatures, but it’s time to get down to business – I need a new office chair stat. Mine’s broken and it’s driving me nuts to sit on it. :-p

Speaking of video work, I’ve been amused lately by a TV promo about a grocery giveaway that looks like something I would’ve done with the on-screen text being “printed” on “receipts” that scroll up the screen. The really funny thing? This promo is not running on a station I used to work for – it’s running on a station that’s, technically speaking, the competition. 😆 Maybe I’m having delusions of grandeur, but permit me a moment to laugh out loud at channel 5 aping some of my old 40/29 promo tricks. (Please don’t mistake this for me pining away for the old job though – one thing I’ve enjoyed about the wild weather this year is being home to take care of my family, rather than getting called in or having to stay hellishly late to wipe someone’s butt and worry my head off about my kid.)

Finally, speaking of my kid, some pictures that only a mother could love: … Read more